Tag Archives: Kelvin Colon

2013 Fall Planting

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Our fall planting at the Boricua bogs is almost done, which will complete the Oswego renovation. Our team started last Monday, and the weather has been mostly cooperative.

The planting team has been moving faster than ever before, and has even set a new record with over 3.5 acres planted in one day. Team member Casey Koehler attributes this to each team member knowing what their assigned task is in addition to good communication by New Production foreman Kelvin Colon. “We start at 6:30 in the morning and everyone just works,” she says. “Everybody has their job but if they’re needed elsewhere, they’ll step up, no questions asked. We switch off a lot, too; it can be hard on your back sitting on the planter. So people will exchange jobs so there are fresh hands and a fresh back on the planter.” In addition, Casey says, “The guys doing the hand planting are fast and they’re good. If everyone’s doing their jobs, then Kelvin can make sure everything’s getting done that needs to be done.”

Every team member is keeping busy. Casey was tracking the daily averages: daily acres planted, number of trays, and the number of plants per acre, as well as the running total acres, while Waldemar Blanco is in charge of making sure both planters are always fully loaded, the plants are delivered, and all trays are sorted and counted according to planter and/or hand planting in order to make accurate measurements.

Communication has become much more efficient with new technology, as updates in the field can be viewed on the office database. The team is also able to track the plant totals: how many carts ordered per day, how many trays used on both planters, how many carts are left at the end of the day, and how many cuttings are planted per acre. Our target is 60,000/acre. “We leave at least one for the following day,” Casey says. “Once we come in at 6:30, we’re moving. So the night before we’ll leave one ready to go, with a tarp over it to keep the heat in.”

Every day a team member measures the acreage to see if they’ve hit their targets, which started at 2.5 acres/day then changed to 3 acres/day. Some bogs are tougher than others, depending on layout: Boricua #5 has some unusual angles due to topography, which made more hand planting necessary and added to the overall time. But the team has been doing very well and are actually ahead of schedule, expecting to be finished by this afternoon.

All that remains to be done is watering the new acreage. While the mostly sunny and dry weather has been good for getting the planting finished, it does mean that the sprinklers need to be run every day for the new plants. It does serve a dual purpose: in addition to sealing the sil around the plants, the team can check for damaged sprinklers.

Thirty acres in ten days is a fantastic achievement, and our team should be proud of the work they have done. It is this willingness to do what needs to be done that helps Pine Island grow more acres and more fruit per acre, year after year.

Blue Harvest Team

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Harvest is going at full speed and all of our teams are doing whatever it takes to bring in this year’s crop. Matt Giberson, our new Blue Team supervisor, was out at Bull Coo on the home farm with his crew this week. Matt has been with us for a year and a half now, learning all the challenges and triumphs of growing cranberries and is applying knowledge of the water from winter flooding to the management of the harvest water flow.

“My main job is to handle the water,” Matt says. “I was really nervous about it at first, especially with the reservoirs being so low. But I’m learning how it all works; I spend a lot of time talking to Bill and Fred, because they know more about the water than anyone else here. And I touch base every morning about our targets: what to pick, what to gather.” Matt is also getting used to the early mornings! “It’s a long drive out to Sim Place, and when you go to bed, you’re always worried about the water: did you close that gate? Is enough coming through?” With the reservoirs being so low, Matt also has to keep an eye on the Crisafulli pumps. “There was a clog at the gate at Red Road this morning; I could tell the stream wasn’t what it was supposed to be. Bill always says, ‘Be creative, have a Plan B’, so we brought some water down from the top. It finally cleaned itself out, and now we have plenty to finish this section.”

It helps to have a couple of experienced crew leaders. Joel DeJesus, who runs the picking crew, and Kelvin Colon, who runs the gathering crew, know what they need to do to keep the balance. “Communication is key, always,” says Matt. “If that goes well, everyone’s job is made a lot easier.” And everyone pitches in. Matt tries to keep Joel’s crew knocking berries at all times, and if Kelvin’s gathering crew catches up, they will help with other tasks, such as pulling sprinklers ahead of the picking crew, while waiting. As with everything else in agriculture, a lot depends on the weather. The wind was favoring the gathering crew, which helps speed up the process considerably. And they have specialized knowledge which also helps with efficiency: Joel keeps a set of tools on him at all times, so if the chain on a harvester breaks, he can usually fix it himself and save the equipment team a trip.

With water management so central to the operation, Matt believes that knowledge is power. “The more people know about the process, the better it is. They ask questions, you give them answers. Then they can see themselves if something’s not right. Vincent was out at Sim Place the other day and noticed a couple of boards had come out, and we were able to get that under control right away.” In turn, he asks plenty of questions and learns extensively from the team members that have been here for many years. Experienced team members such as Wilfredo Pagan, Ivan Burgos, and Jorge Morales, among many others, explained picking patterns to him. Each bog is picked in a specific pattern according to terrain, and the picking crew has to carefully move their harvesters around stakes which have been arranged by the team leader for maximum operational efficiency. Following this pattern allows for minimal damage to the vines. “That one’s still tough,” he says. “But it comes down to knowing your bogs, to keeping your feet in them and picking up the details. The more I walk them, the more I learn.”

Pine Island Cranberry is very happy to have Matt as the new Blue Team supervisor this harvest; he is a great example of the type of leadership we are trying to attract. He is passionate about farming, wants to know everything about how to grow cranberries, and is willing to do whatever it takes to help us achieve our mission. Most of our training on the farm is informal and on-the-job experience. This season, Matt has been able to lead his team and learn from the veterans at the same time, helping us do everything we do better every day.

Gathering

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Last week we went into a bog with one of our picking crews. The next step is one of the most beautiful (and heavily photographed) sights of the harvest every year: gathering the crop. But as with everything related to the harvest, it’s not as simple as our well-trained team makes it look.

An afternoon spent with Tug Haines’ Blue Team at Red Road shows just how much work goes into the second part of the harvesting process. It can be more difficult in some places than others, depending on terrain. “Sometimes the ground is uneven,” Tug says. “The boom has a chain weight underneath, but if the ground is high enough the boom can push back and some fruit escapes.” This is less of a problem with bogs that have been renovated, since the beds are completely level.

Once the knocking machines leave the bog, it’s time to put the boom in. It’s not always necessary to get more than one or two people into the water for this part, but on this particular bog system there are several trees lining one edge, so the gathering crew, led by Kelvin Colon, need to get into the bog and do this by hand.

Each end is then attached to a tractor, which slowly moves along the dam, corralling the berries. Some members of the gathering crew follow alongside, “sweeping” the berries and making sure they stay within bounds. “There’s a trick to it,” Tug says. “It looks really simple but it’s tough to get the hang of it; a lot of guys want to move quickly but it actually gets done faster if you slow down. You only move as fast as the tractor; your body should be slow but your arms should move fast.” Once that is done, both ends of the boom are connected to the boom reel, which is wound ever tighter as the berries are brought up the elevator onto the truck.

While part of the crew is pulling the boom ever tighter, the other part of the crew are setting up the elevator in order to remove the berries from the water and load the trucks bound for the packing house. There are two parts to the elevator: the bed elevator, which is the part that runs into the bog, and the truck elevator, which is the part that leads up to the truck.

As the bed elevator is lowered into the water, someone is there to connect it to the sprayer, which uses the water to help push the berries up to the elevator.

Once all of this is done, it’s time to start moving the berries into the trucks, which have been lined up and are waiting for the set-up to be finished. As each truck pulls up, a crew member jumps up top and makes sure the load is level and that no berries are lost. Kelvin, the Blue Team gathering crew leader, explains, “We get a board to cover the top of the trucks because the two boxes on the back are separate; it keeps the berries from falling between.”

Communication is key with this endeavor; the crew member standing on the truck has to signal both the drivers and the crew members in the water when to stop and when to start. Kelvin’s job is to oversee all of this; he needs to keep the crew and the trucks moving, makes sure that no berries are escaping the boom, makes sure that the crew is pushing berries away. He needs to keep the berries evenly distributed among the boxes on the trucks. Once they’re down to about ten boxes, Tug will start letting the water out. The trick there is not to raise it too high for the pickers in the next bog.

Vincent Arnwine, a new team member who started just before harvest, is visibly impressed by the teamwork involved. “Last week, some of the guys on the picking crew pitched in to help us finish at the end of the day. It’s really cool to work at a place where everyone is willing to do what needs to be done; nobody’s above doing something and no one is afraid of hard work.”

This attention to detail and willingness to step up to the plate shows: our Blue Team has finished the Sim Place portion of the harvest, and despite the flooding and other weather-related setbacks, Sim Place has set a new record. Pine Island Cranberry is proud of every single member of our entire team, who have worked so hard in the past weeks to help get us all here.